East Timor News Digest 5 – May 1-31, 2015
- Timor-Leste welcomes Australia's return of spying documents seized by ASIO - The Guardian (Australia). May 4, 2015
- Australia to return documents seized by ASIO during raid on lawyer's office - ABC News. May 4, 2015
- Timor-Leste: Dozens arrested, tortured in Baucau area, says AI - Pacific Media Centre. May 13, 2015
- Timorese families set to be reunited - Jakarta Post. May 19, 2015
- Timorese families to reunite - Jakarta Post. May 18, 2015
- Authorities foil vehicle, fuel smuggling attempt to Timor Leste - Jakarta Post. May 20, 2015
- Military, police chiefs to visit Timor Leste border - Jakarta Post. May 7, 2015
- Timor Leste leaves past behind for stronger ties with Indonesia - Jakarta Post. May 8, 2015
- Australia knew about Indonesia's napalm plans in Timor Leste - WA Today. May 8, 2015
- Our self-interest is still holding East Timor back - ABC The Drum. May 20, 2015
Timor-Leste welcomes Australia's return of spying documents seized by ASIO
The Guardian (Australia) - May 4, 2015
Daniel Hurst – The Timor-Leste government has praised a decision by the Australian government to return documents about past spying that were at the centre of raids by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) in 2013.
But Timor-Leste said there had still been a lack of progress on resolving a dispute between the two countries over a contentious oil and gas treaty, and warned it was "reserving its rights" on that issue.
Australia's northern neighbour launched action in the International Court of Justice in December 2013 after Asio seized documents from the offices of Timor-Leste's Canberra-based legal adviser, Bernard Collaery.
Australia's attorney general, George Brandis, authorised the raids "on the grounds that the documents contained intelligence related to security matters".
Timor-Leste has said it had irrefutable proof that Australia bugged the country's cabinet room to gain an unfair advantage in the lead-up to a 2006 agreement extending the length of a crucial oil and gas treaty. Those claims were being examined by a separate arbitration tribunal.
On Monday, the government of Timor-Leste issued a statement saying it "appreciated the decision of the government of Australia to return all documents and data seized".
"After 16 months of vigorously defending its right to take and keep the documents, the Australian government has now written to the International Court of Justice stating that it wishes to return them," the statement said.
"On 22 April the court responded to the Australian letter authorising the return of the documents, still sealed, under the supervision of a representative of Timor-Leste."
The government of Timor-Leste said it was reserving its rights on the broader dispute and would be "taking legal advice and considering its position on the case with this new development".
It said the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott, and foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, had sought a six-month adjournment in September in an attempt to allow the two countries "to seek an amicable settlement".
But it said a schedule for bilateral talks on the Timor Sea maritime boundaries "remains undefined".
"Timor-Leste hopes to see Australia put action to its declared principles, and remains optimistic that the leaders of our great neighbour will demonstrate courage and commit to a clear course of negotiations to settle the maritime boundaries between our two countries once and for all," said the minister of state, HE Agio Pereira.
Bishop said Australia had offered to return the documents "in an effort to settle the ICJ case amicably, and as a signal of our goodwill towards Timor-Leste".
"An agreement to produce a structured plan for bilateral talks on maritime delimitation was never part of the agreement to adjourn the matter," she said. "Australia's arrangements with Timor-Leste in the Timor Sea are entirely consistent with international law."
Australia to return documents seized by ASIO during raid on lawyer's office
ABC News - May 4, 2015
Sara Everingham – Australia has agreed to return documents seized during an Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) raid on the office of a lawyer representing East Timor's government in a spying case.
Since the ASIO raids on East Timor's lawyer Bernard Collaery and a former senior Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) officer in December 2013, East Timor has been seeking to have the material returned and took its case to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
In a statement released early on Monday morning, East Timor's minister of state, Agio Pereira, said: "After 16 months of vigorously defending its right to take and keep the documents, the Australian Government has now written to the ICJ, stating that it wishes to return them."
Mr Collaery confirmed he expected the material to be handed back. "There's been a formal consent order made and that was in The Hague [ICJ] last week," he said.
Former ASIS officer's passport issue 'still to be resolved'
At the time of the ASIO raids, East Timor and Australia had just begun arbitration over allegations of spying and the validity of a multi-billion dollar oil and gas treaty.
East Timor wanted the treaty governing the revenue split over the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field torn up, because it said Australia had spied on it in 2004 while the treaty was being negotiated.
East Timor's key witness in the arbitration with Australia was a former officer in ASIS. The agent, known as Witness K, was also a target of the ASIO raids.
Mr Collaery said he welcomed the return of the seized material, but added there were still other significant matters to resolve, particularly for Witness K, whose passport was cancelled.
He said he expected Witness K would be allowed to reapply for a passport and would "be reissued a passport as soon as possible".
Decision consistent with 'friendly, bilateral relationship'
Mr Pereira said the return of the documents was in keeping with the "friendly, bilateral relationship" East Timor was seeking to build with Australia.
He suggested the two countries were not close to reaching an agreement on the underlying dispute over oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.
He indicated East Timor's bid to have the treaty governing the lucrative Greater Sunrise field declared invalid may not be over, saying East Timor was "reserving its rights" and taking legal advice.
Last September East Timor agreed to a request from Australia to suspend all legal proceedings for six months to seek an "amicable agreement", but Mr Pereira said the break had not produced a schedule for talks on a permanent maritime boundary.
"Timor-Leste agreed to Australia's request with the proviso that bilateral discussions during the adjournment period should produce a roadmap for structured talks on the delimitation of permanent maritime boundaries," he said.
The deadline passed in March this year, but Mr Pereira said there had been little progress on a schedule for negotiations.
Settling case 'amicably' in ICJ
East Timor has called for a permanent median-line boundary to deliver what it says is its fair share of revenue from the Greater Sunrise field, estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars.
East Timor and Australia don't have a maritime boundary but under current treaties the Greater Sunrise revenue is to be split 50-50 between the two countries even though the field lies closer to East Timor's coast.
Mr Pereira suggested East Timor's new prime minister Rui Araujo would continue to push the country's case.
Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said after six months of talks, Australia had offered to return the seized documents in order to settle the case in the ICJ amicably. Ms Bishop said a deal to produce a structured plan for bilateral talks on a maritime boundary was never part of the agreement to suspend the legal proceedings.
Timor-Leste: Dozens arrested, tortured in Baucau area, says AI
Pacific Media Centre - May 13, 2015
London (Amnesty International/Pacific Media Watch) – Dozens of individuals have been arbitrarily arrested and tortured or otherwise ill-treated by Timor-Leste security forces as part of security operations in the Baucau district. There are ongoing concerns for their safety, says Amnesty International.
The Timor-Leste security forces have carried out the arrests and ill- treatment in Laga and Baguia in Baucau district over the last few months.
These incidents have occurred as part of a series of joint security operations by the police and military to capture Mauk Moruk (Paulino Gama) and his followers.
Local human rights organisations have documented dozens of cases where individuals, accused of being followers of Mauk Moruk, were beaten and kicked repeatedly by security forces during arrest and detention.
Some had their hands and legs tied. Most were released after brief periods of detention and interrogation. Security forces also reportedly destroyed property of individuals suspected of supporting Mauk Moruk, as part of the operations, such as windows, furniture and other household items. Some also allege that food and money were stolen from their houses. Hundreds have been traumatised by these operations.
Mauk Moruk, a former independence fighter, leads the banned Maubere Revolutionary Council (KRM) and has been a strong critic of the current government. He has reportedly called for the resignation of the government and the dissolution of parliament.
Followers of Mauk Moruk allegedly carried out attacks on the police in Laga and Baguia in January and March 2015. In response, the authorities launched a number of security operations where the use of unnecessary and excessive force has been documented.
Timorese families set to be reunited
Jakarta Post - May 19, 2015
Luh De Suriyani, Denpasar – The first state-facilitated reunions of family members long separated from each other are to begin on Monday in Dili and a few other areas outside Timor Leste's capital.
The reunions of 15 Indonesians, now aged 24 to 50, are part of the work of the governments of Indonesia and Timor Leste, as urged by the now dissolved Commission for Truth and Friendship of Indonesia (KKP) and Timor Leste.
The same recommendation was issued by the Timor Leste Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR). The family reunions this week are being facilitated by the National Commission for Human Rights along with several NGOs in Indonesia and Timor Leste.
In 2011 then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a presidential regulation to implement the family reunions.
"But ironically both governments have not done much to find the children who were lost during the conflict in East Timor from 1975 to 1999," commissioner Sandrayati Moniaga said.
The 25-year armed conflict sparked by Indonesia's annexation of East Timor (now Timor Leste) in 1974 ended with a 1999 referendum that resulted in the independent state of Timor Leste.
Isabelina Pinto, a Timorese who said she was lucky to be found in Bekasi, West Java, by her family when she was five years old, is among those facilitating the reunions.
"We have just been motivating [family members] and helping them to meet each other; imagine how it must feel to be separated for 30 years and to not remember your family."
Many Timorese children were adopted by Indonesian orphanages or members of the military.
An unknown number were told their parents had died, only to find out later that their parents were still alive when they were taken out of Timor. Meanwhile, many adopted as infants only found out years later that they were adopted.
Those who were to be reunited participated in a one-day workshop on Sunday in Canggu, near Denpasar, which was closed to the press. Organizers said it was part of preparations before the reunions.
Victor da Costa, who was taken out of Timor when he was four years old, found his family in 2004 and learned that his parents had died.
"I was considered dead too; my grave was in the middle of theirs," said Victor, who along with Isabelina helped in the search for the families of their fellow Timorese.
Reunions with long-lost family members would be traumatic, he said, given the adaptation with extended families and the complex customs involved in accepting a family member who is believed to have died.
"One mother had even refused to meet her child," said Victor, a cofounder of the Jakarta-based Indonesian Association of Families of Missing Persons (Ikohi).
Indonesia established the KKP in 2005 to uncover the truth behind the violence that took place in the aftermath of the 1999 referendum. The KKP was disbanded in 2008 after producing a report detailing gross human rights violations in Timor Leste.
Meanwhile, the CAVR published a report titled Chega! about the human rights violations that took place over the 25-year period.
The study confirmed that many atrocities occurred from 1974 until 1999 when Timor Leste was still the Indonesian province of East Timor, said Walsh, who was part of the post-CAVR team.
The study found that at least 102,800 civilians died during the conflict. Around 18,600 of them were unlawfully killed or disappeared and at least 84,200 people died from hunger and disease.
The highest number of unlawful killings and disappearances occurred in 1999. At least 1,400 and possibly as many as 2,600 people were killed unlawfully or disappeared at that time.
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/05/19/timorese-families-set-be-reunited.html
Timorese families to reunite
Jakarta Post - May 18, 2015
Luh De Suriyani, Denpasar, Bali – The first state-facilitated reunions of family members long separated from each other are scheduled to be held this week in Dili and a few other areas outside Timor Leste's capital.
The reunions of 15 Indonesian nationals, now aged 24 to 50, are being arranged by the governments of Indonesia and Timor Leste, as urged by the now dissolved Commission for Truth and Friendship of Indonesia and Timor Leste. The same recommendation was made by the Timor Leste Commission for Truth and Reconciliation.
Family reunions to begin Monday are being facilitated by the National Commission for Human Rights along with several NGOs in Indonesia and Timor Leste.
In 2011, then president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a presidential regulation on family reunions. "But ironically, neither governments did much to find the children who were lost during the conflict in East Timor from 1975 to 1999," commissioner Sandrayati Moniaga said.
Isabelina Pinto, a Timorese who said she was lucky her family found her when she was 5 years old in Bekasi, is among those facilitating the reunions. "We have only been motivating [family members] and helping them meet each other. Imagine how it must feel to be separated for 30 years and not remember your family."
Many Timorese children were adopted through Indonesian orphanages and by military members, among others. An unknown number were told their parents had died, only to find out later that their parents had been alive when were taken to Indonesia. As infants, many found out years later that they were adopted.
Those to be reunited participated in a one-day workshop on Sunday in Canggu, near Denpasar, which was closed to the press. Organizers said it was part of preparations before the reunions.
Victor da Costa, who was taken out of Timor when he was 4, discovered family members' identities in 2004, but found that his parents had died. "I was considered dead too, my grave was in between theirs," said Victor, who with Isabelina helped the search for the families of fellow Timorese.
Reunions with long lost family members would be traumatic, he said, given the adaptation with extended families and the complex customs involved in accepting a family member who had been believed to be dead. "One mother even refused to meet her child," said Victor, a co-founder of the Jakarta- based Association of Missing Persons (Ikohi). (hhr)
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/05/18/timorese-families-reunite.html
Authorities foil vehicle, fuel smuggling attempt to Timor Leste
Jakarta Post - May 20, 2015
Djemi Amnifu, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara – East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) authorities foiled an attempt to smuggle four cars, 27 motorcycles and fuel to Timor Leste on Thursday.
NTT Police spokesman Adj. Comr. Agus Santosa said that the confiscated vehicles and fuel had been secured at the Belu Police headquarters.
"It is a joint cross-border operation. The police have coordinated with the military to secure narrow paths along the border area between Belu regency and Timor Leste," Agus told The Jakarta Post.
The cross-border operation has secured two tons of fuel from smuggling attempts in the last two months.
Military, police chiefs to visit Timor Leste border
Jakarta Post - May 7, 2015
Jakarta – Indonesian Military commander Gen. Moeldoko and National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti are scheduled to visit the Indonesian-Timor Leste border in Atambua, Belu regency, East Nusa Tenggara on Thursday.
The visitors want to have a close look at the condition of the border area, Regiment 161/Wirasakti spokesman Maj. Arwan said.
"The military and police chiefs will give directives to soldiers and police officers at El-Tari Airport in Kupang before heading for the border area," Arwan said as quoted by Antara news agency.
The two generals are scheduled to arrive in Kupang at 9:30 a.m. (hhr)
Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2015/05/07/military-police-chiefs-visit-timor-leste-border.html
Timor Leste leaves past behind for stronger ties with Indonesia
Jakarta Post - May 8, 2015
Jakarta – A majority of Timor Leste's population and a sizable proportion of the country's elite have come to terms with the past and look forward to engaging more with Indonesia after the two nations' difficult relationship in the past, says Timor Leste's Defense and Security Minister Julio Tomas Pinto.
Pinto told a seminar titled "East Timor Security in the Regional Context" staged by the Indonesian Institute for Science (LIPI) on Thursday that even former members of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), many of whom currently hold senior political positions in Timor Leste, had moved on from the country's bloody past and were open to mutually beneficial cooperation with Indonesia.
"Let the past be the past. We will not forget it but we do not want it to limit us. Our people, the elites and ordinary people, have come to that realization," Pinto said in his speech.
Pinto said that Timor Leste, known as East Timor from 1976 up until its independence from Indonesia in 2002, had been actively engaged in efforts at reconciliation and cooperation with its former occupier.
He said that Timor Leste and Indonesia cooperated militarily and were now working on an integrated sea patrol agreement.
Historically the relationship between Timor Lester and Indonesia has been dominated by the latter's invasion and almost three-decade long occupation.
In December 1975, Indonesia occupied East Timor in an military operation called Operasi Seroja, a few months after Fretilin declared independence from Portugal in September 1975. The initial operation lasted for two years and Indonesia continued its occupation until 1999.
In July 1976, the disputed territory became the 27th province of Indonesia, although resistance to Indonesian rule continued, with more than 100,000 people, both military personnel and civilians, reportedly dying in conflict or from famine.
The resistance struggle and campaign for independence continued until a UN-supervised referendum in 1999, which was followed by the country's independence in 2002.
LIPI's researcher Ganewati Wuryandari said that relations between Indonesia and Timor Leste had been improving steadily with the former occupier now said to be the strongest supporter of Timor Leste's bid to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
She encouraged Indonesia to put more effort into collaborating with Timor Leste. "Although Timor Leste is a small country, it has a strategic position for Indonesia. It is a country that directly borders our East Nusa Tenggara province. Besides that we have cultural and historical links with the people of Timor Leste. We have to make use of that." Ganewati told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
The House of Representatives is expected to soon ratify a defense agreement with Timor Leste. The ratification will allow Indonesia to improve joint military training, exchange intelligence information and trade weapons with Timor Leste. The cooperation with Timor Leste was signed in 2011. (saf)
Australia knew about Indonesia's napalm plans in Timor Leste
WA Today - May 8, 2015
Philip Dorling – The Australian and United States governments knew Indonesia was prepared to use napalm against the people of Timor Leste but made no protest, according to secret documents unearthed by an Australian researcher.
Associate Professor Clinton Fernandes from the Australian Defence Force Academy has found previously classified Australian diplomatic papers that call into question repeated Indonesian denials that incendiary weapons were used in Timor Leste during Jakarta's 24-year occupation of the former Portuguese colony.
The discovery is a breakthrough in Dr Fernandes' long running research to establish the extent of the Australian Government's knowledge of Indonesian war crimes in East Timor.
One of the documents found by Dr Fernandes at the National Archives of Australia is a September 1983 letter from the Australian consul in Bali, Malcolm Mann, to Dennis Richardson, then counsellor in the Australian Embassy in Jakarta, to report a conversation with the United States consul in Surabaya, Jay McNaughton.
The American had told Mr Mann that he had "seen intelligence reports that the Indonesians were fitting napalm tanks to their F5 aircraft for use in Indonesia".
The Indonesian Air Force had acquired from the United States a dozen Northrop F-5 ground attack aircraft three years earlier. Mr McNaughton explained that "American experts had been asked to help with the fitting of the napalm tanks as the Indonesians were having difficulty in trimming the aircraft".
Mr Richardson asked the US Embassy in Jakarta to confirm the Indonesians had approached the United States for assistance in fitting napalm tanks and was told that US contractors had been engaged "because the napalm tanks were made in Italy and modifications were needed in order to fit them to F5s".
In early November 1983 Richardson forwarded a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra in which he added that "the United States assumed that, given the recent military build-up in East Timor, the approach had been made in connection with East Timor".
Following international outcries generated by the use of napalm in the Vietnam War, use of the incendiary weapon against civilians was effectively banned by a 1980 United Nations convention that prohibits conventional weapons which are "excessively injurious" or have "indiscriminate effects". However Indonesia did not and has not signed the convention.
The Department of Foreign Affairs files examined by Dr Fernandes show the Australian Embassy in Jakarta took no action to protest against Indonesia's use of napalm and there was no reaction in Canberra, where then prime minister Bob Hawke's Labor Government was eager to improve relations with Indonesia and open negotiations with Jakarta on the oil and gas resources of the Timor Sea.
In 2006, following the publication of allegations of Indonesian napalm use against Timorese civilians in the report of Timor's United Nations- sponsored Truth and Reconciliation Commission, then Indonesian defence minister Juwono Sudarsono declared that such attacks "never happened".
"How could we have used napalm against the East Timorese? Back then we didn't even have the capacity to import, let alone make napalm," Mr Sudarsono.
One witness quoted by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Lucas da Costa Xavier, recalled: "The trees and grass would burn when the bombs hit them... Many civilians died from drinking the water contaminated with shrapnel from bombs dropped from the planes, and many died of burns – it was the dry season, so the grass burned easily."
Dr Fernandes said the Foreign Affairs department documents were significant "because they are the first hard evidence of napalm from the official records, and not just the testimony of survivors."
"The documents show that the East Timorese and the small group of international activists who supported them were telling the truth," Dr Fernandes said
"The Labor government that came to office in 1983 knew that the Indonesian military were committing crimes against humanity, including burning people alive with napalm, but they said and did nothing."
Dr Fernandes has been engaged in a protracted legal battle in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the Federal Court to secure the declassification of Australian intelligence and diplomatic records relating to Indonesia's occupation of East Timor.
The Australian government claims declassification of the papers would reveal still sensitive intelligence and damage Australia's relations with Indonesia. Much of the government's evidence has been suppressed following the issue of a "public interest certificate" by Attorney-General George Brandis.
"The current government should declassify all relevant records so that the full truth can come out," Dr Fernandes said.
Our self-interest is still holding East Timor back
ABC The Drum - May 20, 2015
Tom Clarke – As the Timorese celebrate their 14th "Restoration of Independence Day" this week, it is once again Australia's self-interest that prevents their long struggle for sovereignty from being complete.
For a Government that talks a lot about sovereign borders, you would think Australia would be willing to establish some between it and East Timor, but no, it is seemingly happy to continue short-changing one of the poorest countries in Asia out of billions of dollars in gas and oil revenue.
The news earlier this month that Attorney-General George Brandis will hand back the documents that ASIO dramatically seized from East Timor's lawyers 16 months ago, is just the latest of many sordid chapters in Australia's decades-long pursuit of East Timor's oil and gas resources.
The documents were seized in late 2013 just before arbitration in The Hague was to commence over allegations that Australia had spied on the tiny nation for financial gain by bugging the Timorese government's cabinet room during negotiations in 2004 and 2005 over an oil and gas treaty.
The negotiations over the Greater Sunrise gas field, estimated to be worth $40 billion in government revenues, were taking place because then, just like now, Australia refused to even entertain the idea of establishing permanent maritime boundaries with East Timor. It prefers to jostle the fledgling nation into a series of treaties that cover particular fields or areas, picking them off one by one.
As a sovereign nation East Timor has a right to permanent maritime boundaries. It has consistently asked for them, but successive Australian foreign ministers have simply dug in their heels. Julie Bishop seems to be following suit and Australia is back to its old tricks in the Timor Sea.
Timor has few legal avenues to challenge Australia's approach because two months before East Timor became independent in 2002, Australia withdrew its recognition of the maritime boundary jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice. In other words, it told the independent umpire to bugger off.
It's hard to take seriously Bishop's claims that Australia's position is "entirely consistent with international law" when Australia is not confident enough in its own legal arguments to have them tested in an independent court.
Since the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, in circumstances such as these international law has overwhelmingly favoured "median line solutions". Spurious arguments about "continental shelves" may have had traction in the 1960s and '70s, but they are no longer relevant. Today, you draw a line half way between the two coastlines.
A median line approach would mean if an oil field is located closer to East Timor then it belongs to East Timor; closer to Australia then it's Australian. Simple, common sense and exactly what international law proscribes.
It also happens to be what Australia agreed to with New Zealand when it resolved overlapping claims off Norfolk Island in 2004. Abiding by current international law is seemingly easier when billions of dollars in government revenue is not at stake.
When an Australian whistleblower came forward with details of how the Government had used an AusAid project as a cover to bug key Timorese buildings, East Timor saw an opening and argued the most recent treaty (the Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea Treaty) should be nullified as Australia clearly wasn't acting in good faith when it was signed.
In a provisional ruling in March 2014 the International Court of Justice ordered the Australian Government not to access the documents it had seized (Brandis had promised they had been kept in sealed envelopes) and delivered an unprecedented slap-down, telling Australia to immediately stop interfering with East Timor's communications and not to use national security as an alibi for commercial espionage.
The case was put on hold in October 2014 to allow time to see if Australia and East Timor could reach an amicable settlement. The hope was that the squabble about spying and documents could be put aside and the two neighbours could get down to the real issue of setting boundaries.
However, it's increasingly becoming clear that the Australian Government had no such intentions. The return of the documents some 16 months later is a good-will gesture that merely masks the fact that any hope for genuine negotiations has been scuttled.
After a few rounds of legal and diplomatic snakes and ladders, here we are, back at square one; East Timor with no permanent maritime boundaries and Australia refusing to even discuss the possibility of establishing them. Old habits die hard.
[Tom Clarke is the Timor Sea Justice Campaign's spokesperson in Melbourne and works part-time as the director of communications at the Human Rights Law Centre. Visit www.timorseajustice.com or follow @TimorSeaJustice.]